Other Lives
by ncfan
Summary: This is all too much. [Spoilers for EP7]


Spoilers for EP7.

I own nothing.

* * *

"_I am capable of imagining 'what-if' scenarios for my own life. However… the tale you tell…is beyond anything I can imagine…"_

"_Even so… It's the life that another 'you' has led."_

"_But still! That doesn't mean I can accept it easily!"_

I always feel foolish when I shout. As a result, I don't shout very often; I haven't since I was a child. My voice cracks and sounds entirely too tinny for the image of myself that I like to put up of myself. I'm shouting now, and I feel just as foolish as I ever have when I shout. My face is burning; I don't want to look at anyone else, so I look at the ground instead. The floor is unfamiliar to me; it's not like I was allowed in the chapel often as a kid. For all that Jessica claims that I was favored over her, I wasn't favored enough to be let into Grandfather's sacred place.

This is all… It's just so much.

"_Even if it is a different world, you're saying that I get my entire family and all of the servants involved in a terrible crime that I'm the mastermind of! How am I supposed to deal with that?!"_

"_Be quiet, listen, and figure it out."_

"_In a different life, I end up as a servant! And as if that wasn't enough, I suddenly become a witch! And then, I eventually carry out several terrifying murders… How am I supposed to figure that out?!"_

I really am capable of imagining 'what-if' scenarios in my life. I wonder sometimes what would have happened if I had learned to play the violin instead of the clarinet. I wonder what would happen if I had chosen soccer over badminton. I wonder what would have happened if I had horsed around with Jessica some more as kids instead of bossing her around all the time. I wonder what life would be like if we got along better than we do. But this tops all.

Let's start at the beginning, before our fates diverge.

Mom is given a baby to raise, a baby that isn't hers by blood. I'm still struggling to accept the fact that I'm not really Mom and Dad's kid, that I'm not Jessica's sibling, at least not by blood. I suppose that Mom and Dad raised me despite me not really being their kid only heightens the debt I owe them. Especially Mom. When they were struggling to have children, no one was laying the blame on Dad's shoulders. Mom was blamed for everything, held in contempt by all of our relatives. When I think about the pressure she must have been under…

Mom is given a baby to raise, a baby that isn't hers by blood. There is an infinitesimally, frighteningly small probability of her accepting that child as her own, and raising that child to adulthood. There is a frighteningly small probability of that child growing up to be me.

And there is a frighteningly large probability of that child growing up to be Beatrice.

In most of the worlds I've seen, Mom rejects me. She doesn't want me. I scream for someone to hold me, and she clutches at her head and snaps for one of the servants to do it instead. And then…

That child grows up in an orphanage, lonely and neglected. Everything is skewed.

I should be a part of that family, but I'm a servant to them instead. Instead of being loved by my parents and coddled by my aunts and uncles, Mom is very strict and unpleasant to me, Dad barely seems to notice I'm there, and my aunts and uncles snigger behind their hands at every little misstep I make. It's… really nasty to look at.

I'm Jessica's older sibling. But in these worlds, I refer to her as 'Milady', and Mom does everything she can to keep us from playing together or even talking in a friendly manner. Mom tells Jessica not to talk to me, nor to treat me like an equal. I am inferior. I'm unworthy to be Jessica's friend.

(And as a side-note, apparently I've got a crush on Battler. That's… just… _weird._)

This… It… It hurts.

It was bad enough when I saw all of the Fragments. But now, when I listen to Beatrice—no, Clair—tell the story, it's finally feeling like I've lived it. Like I've lived a life where I am a servant to the family I should have been a part of, a life where Mom doesn't love me, a life where Mom rejected me and even tried to kill me when I was a baby. I know that the Mom I love and the Mom who loves me is a different person than all of these other women called Ushiromiya Natsuhi, but now, when I think of Mom, I'm not sure if I will ever be able to think of her again without seeing the shadows of these other women, these women who didn't love me, and didn't accept me.

I stare at Clair, stare her down. I can feel the witch Bernkastel behind me, sneering in contemptuous amusement at my confusion, my distress, but I don't care about that petty creature, not right now. I want answers that I know she can't give me—I want to know how it could all be so different for her and me, I want to know why Mom's heart leaned in a different direction for her than it did for me. Will stands between the two of us; I think he actually thinks I might hurt her if he doesn't. Have no fear, Sherlock. I'm not like that.

But Clair can't give me answers. She just stares back at me, with those dull, blank eyes, that dull, blank stare. Like a life-sized doll that no one ever plays with anymore, and has been left in a shadowy corner of a room, to gather dust. And she's me. Another me. Another me, gathering dust, because no one will play with her anymore.

"_Yeah, I see where you're coming from. I doubt anyone could understand. This person here thought that no one would ever understand. That's why you're here. That's why Bernkastel brought you two, two people who never should have met, together like this."_

Will keeps telling me to understand her. That only 'I' can understand 'myself' on the deepest level. I look at Clair, and I think that, somewhere in the depths of that dull gaze, I can see sadness. It's the sadness brought on by apathy and stagnation, of being unable to escape a miserable life, of being unable to articulate exactly why you're miserable, but being so miserable that you retreat into magic and fantasy, and just run away.

And 'I' will eventually kill the family that I love.

They tell me I'll understand eventually, but unless someone gives me a very thorough explanation, I don't think I ever will. It's all too much.


End file.
